Growing Like Weeds

Lately I’ve been thinking about time management—not in the abstract way that leads to spiral-bound planners and goal-setting podcasts, but in the ways I’ve learned to carve my priorities out of the hours required for work calls, dinner, and bedtime stories.

Sometimes, I really only have 30 minutes to write down an idea, add meat to it, pull it apart and research its insides. After all these years, sometimes I still think, what’s the point of starting something I might not finish tonight?

I’ve learned that taking the time to do even one of those tasks as it relates to a new idea is worth it, especially when it comes to crafting article pitches. Here’s my confession: if I don’t send a pitch when my belief in myself is at its peak, I let the idea die on the vine. Again and again, I’ve found that my confidence is oddly synchronized with chaos—my self-esteem seems to be highest when the demands on my time are, too.

Whether I’m reaching out to a history magazine about women scientists or an environmental publication about food aid, the hardest part isn’t the writing itself. It’s deciding that the half-hour I have right now is enough to get the idea down before the next load of laundry.

When I tell my family I’m “pitching,” they look at me as if I’ve announced I’m trying out for a baseball team.
“Pitching what?” my husband asks.
“An article!”

My husband mostly nods politely, not realizing that pitching an article means throwing an idea into the world and hoping someone catches it. It’s a strange mix of vulnerability and confidence—equal parts hope and hustle.

So this is my reminder to myself (and maybe to you): don’t wait for a perfect, uninterrupted block of time. Take twenty minutes and capture the idea before it slips away. Write a sentence about what you want the article to say, mean, or who you hope reads it. Find the email address for submissions. Draft the email subject line. Just start.

Growing like weeds, after all, isn’t about abundance without effort—it’s about finding the cracks in the concrete and letting something meaningful take root, one blade at at time.